


For The Better

by bloody_gavin



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Detailed Injuries, Gore, Gun Violence, Homelessness, Mentioned Dadvid - Freeform, Mentions of Candy x Carl, Mentions of Starvation, Murder, Suicide, mentions of abuse, mentions of nikki's mom x neil's dad, mentions of parents, very possible ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 15:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15027755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloody_gavin/pseuds/bloody_gavin
Summary: After Camp Campbell goes Bankrupt, the parents come to pick up their children from the failed camp, and the staff goes off to find new jobs. The only ones left are Max and David, those with no place to go, but David finds a solution to both of their problems.





	For The Better

The rain trickled down softly onto the campground, making tapping sounds against the sturdy glass of the camp’s Mess Hall as it fell from the sky. Max had been sitting in the Mess Hall for a while now, talking with Nikki and Neil at a table closer to the window. They had all been given something to snack on while they waited, small sandwiches that had nothing but some crushed up chips between them. While Max and Neil seemed to avoid the poor excuse for food, Nikki was shoving her’s into her mouth in a process of rolling up the sandwich into a burrito like shape and taking large bites of it. “Man, no wonder this place is shutting down! They didn’t even have the spicy chips!” Nikki yelled out in complaint, pulling a small portion of a chip out of her sandwich-burrito hybrid and motioning to it with disgust. “This is just some Lays Brand bargain chips!”   
  
Max made an expression that wasn’t much like he standard scowl, snatching the piece of chip and angrily looking towards the green-haired girl. “Nikki, they don’t even have a dollar, do you expect David to go out in the rain and buy a bag of Doritos with money that none of us have?” Nikki paused, realizing that her attempt to lighten the mood did sound a bit insensitive. She made a sad looking face, turning to Neil, who was on a phone of some sort and seeming to be texting someone. Max and Nikki both assumed that it was his father, since he was coming to pick him up. Max made a noise that could possibly be described as an aggressive sigh, while Nikki attempted to look over Neil’s shoulder to confirm her theory. Neil turned his head to look at the other, suddenly raising his voice as he spoke in a somewhat panicked tone. “What?” Was the only thing he got out before Nikki asked aloud. “Sooooo, when’s our dad getting here?” Neil seemed angered by the way she said that, turning completely and seeming very defensive. “I think you mean when is MY dad getting here?”   
  
“Guys! Shut the fuck up about parents! I’ve had to deal with enough of that shit today!” Max burst out, interrupting his arguing friends. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to hide the sadness behind his anger. There was a silence after the outburst, and the rain once again was the only thing to fill the mess hall with noise. The rain had seemed to come down harder on the camp, and a large sound of rumbling thunder made it clear that the weather was definitely worse. Max opened his eyes after a while to look to the scrap of paper he had held in his hand. He looked over the words. It said ‘Have a great year, Keep in touch!’ with both Neil and Nikki’s contact information on it. Neil’s information typed up and taped on with what Max could only assume was a labelmaker, while Nikki’s information was most likely written in dirt for how messy the writing was. He could still somehow make it out, but even then, it wasn’t so helpful. Nikki had just written ‘Call to the Forest and the Forest will Call back” on it. Max didn’t even know why he asked for phone numbers. He didn’t even have a phone. He just used David’s half of the time to mess with him, even if it never truly bothered the counselor.   
  
Max sighed, looking over to the two of his friends, and suddenly speaking in a tone that was as is he was struggling to not sound like the asshole he usually was. “Thank you guys, for being my friend when I didn’t fucking deserve friends.” He tried to look away, not wanting to see if he had accidentally made the other two feel like shit with his own insecurities, but before he could think about it too awfully much, he felt an impact on him that knocked him off of the mess hall table. Max felt the floor hit his head, causing his entire body to pause for a moment in shock, and then searing pain went through his head that made him angrily growl in pain. His eyes took a moment to adjust, the painfully bright mess hall light above making it hard for him to get his vision together, but once he did, he quickly pushed his attacker off of him while she laughed. “God fucking damnit Nikki, get off me.” The male grumbled, then moving to rub his hands over his face as he looked at Nikki, still smiling at him and laughing.   
  
Almost on cue with the impact of Max’s head on the ground, footsteps came from the door to the mess hall, and the auburn-haired figure of David stopped at the group of kids, just in time for Max to cross his arms to pretend that he wanted to be on the floor. David’s typically cheery voice rang throughout the hall as he spoke, which Max couldn’t help but feel as suspicious. He knew David was happy pretty much 80% of his life, but now was one of those days where David being happy seemed a bit...out of character. “Nikki, Neil! Your ride is outside waiting for you two!” With this exclamation, Neil gave a sigh, and Nikki said a very loud ‘yay’ at the top of her lungs. Without much said to David, Nikki ran out the door of the mess hall, and nobody was sure what was louder, the crash of thunder outside or the thundering sound of Nikki bursting out the door towards the parked car in front of the mess hall. Neil’s exit was a lot quieter, moving by David and calling out towards Max as he walked towards the door. “Hey Max, call me when you can, okay?” In response, Max projected his voice out with a loud sounding “Whatever.”   
  
After the two had left, David moved to pick Max up off of the floor and sit him back down properly in the table. Max didn’t even move an inch, not even with his expression of pouting. No this wasn’t just pouting, this was advanced pouting. “Well, Max! It’s just you and me now!” David said with a smile across his face. Max looked over, and felt as if something was different. There was a look in David’s eyes that he couldn’t quite put his finger on for a moment. For some reason, his eyes seemed..like they were in pain, the skin around the bottom of his eye socket looking puffy and red, almost as if he had been crying. Max didn’t want to pry, well, actually he did, but he felt an unnerving feeling, as if asking him about it would just make him break down in front of him. Despite his brain’s best efforts to get him to not say a thing, Max decided to voice his concerns. “What the hell is up with you today, David? For how much you care about this damn place, I would have at least expected you to fucking cry when Nikki and Neil left. Why the fuck do you still seem so happy about it?”   
  
It seemed as though those words hit a nerve, as David suddenly pulled back a little, and it looked almost as if his smile was going to twitch into a sorrowful frown, and his eyes seemed to move in their sockets, perhaps close to crying again. Max swore he could see the glimmer of tears in David’s eyes, but it could have also been the rain that had soaked David completely. After a quick moment of silence, giving David time to control himself, He tried to explain, though his voice was interrupted at some point by breathing that clearly hid tears.  “Max, they were going to leave at the end of the summer anyhow, there’s no point in crying about it. Sure I won’t see them next year, but at least they’re home with their parents.” Warm tears finally started to flow down David’s face once again, his head drooping as he tried to keep himself standing.

Max’s frown turned from one of anger, to one of some kind of sadness. Max could barely hear David’s whisper that was decorated by tears and sniffling. “I’m sorry I can’t say you’re home with your parents too, Max…” Max’s eyes seemed to widen at the words that came from David, almost feeling bad for him as he continued to cry and shake, refusing to sit down. Max growled to himself, trying to talk to David for once without sounding like an asshole. “Fucking hell, David, I-” Before Max could speak, David’s head bolted up, and his voice broke out of him like a bolt of lightning from the storm outside. “No, Max I will make things better! We’ll both live out the best life we can, even without Camp Campbell! I promise!” Max felt somewhat startled by David’s actions, but instead of letting the camper ask any questions, the male ran to a door in the mess hall leading to the kitchen, and then to another door leading somewhere else that Max couldn’t remember quite well enough to know why he was going there. “Max, I promise! I have something that will help us both fix all of this! As long as my name is David Miles Arc, I will make things right!” The counselor yelled as he left, leaving Max to think about just what the fuck had happened.  
  
The dark haired camper sat back in the bench of the table, thinking to himself as the rain fell down onto the camp. He swore it was raining even harder than before or something. The rain no longer sounded like a bunch of tiny water bugs tapping their feet on the window, it sounded like a giant rain gorilla was going to smash through the door and kill somebody. Even so, Max’s thinking went to exactly what David could possibly do to fix this. Everyone else was gone, Max didn’t have a home to go back to, and David didn’t have any fucking money. Maybe he found some money that was barely enough to eat for a week? It’d be fucking stupid for David to waste that money on Max, though, so that was out of the picture. Max’s next thought was that David had family somewhere that could take care of them both while David was homeless and broke. David had never really talked about his family though, but Max still had that as his theory. Besides, what else would be a solution to all of this mess that Campbell put them through?   
  
Max’s thoughts were interrupted by the slam of the doors nearby, and footsteps from the other side of the hall. The camper looked up to see David with some sort of frame. Max gave a suspicious look towards David. Really? He said he had the answers to all of this mess and came back with a fucking picture frame? As David came to sit down close to Max to show him the image, Max angrily spoke towards the taller male. “What the hell, David? How is a dumbass picture going to do anything?” He growled, but David smiled at him, and showed him the picture by placing it on his lap. Max was still angry with the other, but looked down at the image, finding himself in a mixture of confusion and slight melancholy as he analyzed the image.   
  
It was David, but it wasn’t the same David that was sitting next to him, no. It was David when he was a kid, among a group of other kids in front of the mess hall. All the kids had papers that said their names, their ages, and the camps they apparently signed up for, just like the papers David pulled out during Parents Day. That’s when Max noticed something in the image. David’s paper. Name, David. Age, 12 at the time, apparently. Camp...Max noticed that there was nothing written there, and that in the image, David was upset, pouting, and he could almost note that his face was red with previous tears before the image was taken.     
  
“My parents didn’t care either, Max.” David’s voice broke through the silence that let Max analyze the image. Max looked up in shock towards David, who now had a somewhat somber tone to him, and a sorrowful look on his face. The words that left him felt as if his voice was tired, and as if the soul behind his usual voice was close to death. “My parents sent me to Camp Campbell to get rid of me too. They didn’t want to bother with me, Max...the only reason I stayed alive was because Cameron hired me when I was 13. I was able to sleep and eat at the camp and didn’t have to go home as long as Cameron could pay for everything. Even in the winter, I’d stay and take care of the place and prepare for next summer. It’s hard to believe, but back then, before I got hired, I wished some prisoner would show up and shoot us all. I wanted to die back then, but I didn’t...and I had to deal with knowing I wasn’t worth anything to my parents for years afterwards.” David looked over to Max, who’s face had morphed into a look of pity towards the other. David’s voice rose again, tears beginning to run down his cheek once more, and his face becoming even more red in his suffering.   
  
“I thought for such a long time that after that summer, I’d be out on the street and that I would starve to death. Cameron saved me then with his greed and need for workers with no other place to go, but now, now there’s nobody here to save me. Nobody’s here to save anyone. Not me...and not you..” Before David could continue, he suddenly felt something that caused a thump against his chest. It took him a moment to realize, but when he did, he couldn’t help but smile. Max’s hug wasn’t that easy, just trying to hug David and back away, but he couldn’t before David’s long arm curled around him to hug him back. David also felt a warmth on him, and realized that Max had started crying as well. David’s words, no longer interrupted, began again, in a reassuring tone that echoed through Max’s head.   
  
“Don’t worry Max...I won’t let you starve out there, I’m not going to let you suffer for the rest of your life. Camp or no camp, I promise I’ll make everything better.” Max heard this, and sniffled, trying to pull away from the hug so that he and David could continue talking, but in return, the amount of force around his neck only tightened, almost to the point where Max had trouble breathing. His pity and sadness turned to confusion and rage in an instant with the feeling around his throat. “David what the fuck!?” He cried out, wheezing and sounding like an old man as the air was taken from his lungs. “Max, I told you.” David’s voice now sounded less comforting, and more like the sound of a dark demon who had captured its prey. Every word made Max want to escape from his grasp more, but somehow, no matter how hard he pushed against David, he couldn’t shove him away.   
  
“I’m not going to let you starve, Max. You don’t deserve to live like I thought I would back when I was near your age. You don’t deserve to suffer in death, Max.” David looked as if he was going to begin crying harder, but all sympathy had fallen into fear, and Max just continued to try and escape as he heard the counselor go on about his fucked up motive. “I’m going to make sure that your future doesn’t hurt you for so many years after this...and I’m going to do what I always wished someone would do to me.” As he said this, Max heard a slight clicking noise. Max began to panic, knowing exactly what he was going to try to do. “What the fuck, you maniac! You’re going to fucking shoot me!” With these words, David started to hiccup with tears, and his grip only got tighter, causing Max to lose his ability to speak at all, much less breathe. As Max felt the cold metal against his scalp on the back of his head, and the tears of the taller one falling from his face onto Max’s, he closed his eye. Still struggling against the grip, wanting to escape, Max heard David’s crying voice let out a very muddled phrase that Max could never believe was sincere.   
  
“Max, It’s for your own good...I’m sorry.”   
  
The feeling went by too quickly for Max to have a second’s thought. The searing pain went through him in a moment as he felt the scratching on his head turn into an impact, a piercing into his flesh and fat that made the softest squishing sound. Blood drooled from the injury very softly in the moment before the initial crack in his skull, making a sound that shattered Max’s soul. He no longer was able to have even a single feeling after the skull was broken, his brain being pierced by the bullet and causing his heart to cease it’s beating, the blood no longer flowing, and his body already beginning to get colder with the new state of death in his body.   
  
David closed his eyes, tears still flowing through him, as he put his forehead against Max’s head, only able to think about his guilt for so long before the bullet reached him as well. The gun fell out of his hand, and clattered on the wooden table, echoing throughout the mess hall as thunder and rain seemed to fade away. In that moment, it felt as if time slowed even more. David’s eyes opened as he looked towards the camper. He knew that Max would want nothing more than revenge, for David to die. But it seemed as if David knew that long before any of this played out. As David’s eyes started to cloud over, his head beginning to ooze with blood that meshed with the blood from Max’s head, He smiled. The blood mixing had caused a feeling of warmth in his forehead, both from Max’s blood and his own, and as the bullet hit his brain and he no longer could feel anything in this world, some last thought passed through his soul before everything turned to black in an array of dripping wounds.   
  
“I hope Max can forgive me one day.”   
“It was for the better…”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this trash where two people die.  
> If you didn't, Then Perish.


End file.
